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Consumer Reports Health: Americans with
Heartburn paying too much Green for Nexium's
'Purple Pill'
This holiday season, settle your stomach,
relieve your wallet
YONKERS, N.Y., Oct. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/
-- Just in time for the holidays, when many
of us may suffer from occasional heartburn,
a new Best Buy Drugs report from Consumer
Reports Health finds that you probably
don't need an expensive drug like Nexium,
the "purple pill," for relief.
The new report uses comparative
effectiveness research to identify "Best
Buys" based on safety, effectiveness, and
price for Proton Pump Inhibitors, a class of
drugs to treat heartburn and stomach acid
reflux.
The report found that no one drug works
better than another and that all are
relatively safe. However, some PPIs are far
more expensive than others.
Last year, U.S. consumers and their
insurance companies spent $4.8 billion on
Nexium, one of six PPIs currently available,
making "the purple pill" the second
highest-selling drug in 2008, behind
Lipitor.
It's no wonder: a month's supply of Nexium
has a retail price tag of up to $240 a
month, compared to just $24 a month for an
over-the-counter PPI.
"For most consumers, over-the-counter,
generic drugs will treat their frequent
heartburn and acid reflux just as well as
more expensive prescription drugs, and save
them money too," said Lisa Gill, editor,
prescription drugs, Consumer Reports
Health. "We think doctors have been too
quick to prescribe expensive, prescription
medications when a generic or an
over-the-counter would work just as well."
The first and best bet to settle your
stomach is to try an inexpensive,
over-the-counter antacid (such as Maalox,
Mylanta, Rolaids, Tums, or their generic
versions) or an H2 blocker (Pepcid AC,
Zantac 150, or their generic versions).
People who suffer from heartburn twice a
week or more for weeks or months on end may
have GERD, short for gastroesophageal reflux
disease, a condition that makes you prone to
acid reflux.
Those people should see their doctor. They
may need a PPI.
Consumer Reports
Health notes that people who do need
PPIs could save about $200 a month by asking
their doctor for an alternative to Nexium
such as Prilosec OTC or its generic version,
omeprazole OTC, which costs less than $1 a
day.
Preavacid24HR,
an over-the-counter version of Prevacid,
could arrive as early as mid-November,
providing another good option for consumers.
Consumer Reports
Best Buy Drugs, which rates more than 200
prescription drugs to treat more than 20
common conditions, is part of a larger
initiative by the new Consumer Reports
Health Ratings Center to provide
consumers with health ratings based on
independent and unbiased review of the best
scientific evidence available, also known as
Comparative Effectiveness Research.
Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs reports
in Spanish are available for free at
www.consumerreportsenespanol.org.
Help for Heartburn
-
Track how often you get heartburn, so
you can tell your doctor.
-
Eat smaller meals, lose weight, and
avoid alcohol.
-
Try over-the-counter antacids such as
Maalox, Mylanta, Rolaids, or Tums, or
one of many acid-reducing drugs known as
an H2 blockers, such as cimetidine (Tagamet
HB), famotidine (Pepcid AC), nizatidine
(Axid AR) or ranitidine (Zantac 150).
These are available as low-cost generics
as well.
-
See a doctor if symptoms persist.
-
Compare cost and effectiveness of
different PPIs if your doctor recommends
one; check to see if your insurance
covers over-the-counter PPIs.
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